


Like Riding A Bike

by nikomiel



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Darkrebelshipping - Freeform, ish, riding duels, shun ragequits, what a surprise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 11:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5288267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikomiel/pseuds/nikomiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During his first practice of a riding duel in the Synchro Dimension, Shun remembers it's not the only time he's tried a motorbike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Riding A Bike

The first time Shun tried a riding duel, alone in the underground duel arena, he fell off before he’d even started up the bike.

 

It went alright in the beginning.

Shun had swung himself across the dark purple frame, long gangly limbs touching the ground with no problem whatsoever, and there it was. Another memory.

Back in Heartland, Yuuto had always been one of _those_ boys, and by that Shun meant a walking contradiction. All about caution until you got to know him and realised that he wouldn’t jaywalk if you paid him but was perfectly happy to zoom around on a metal death trap at fifty miles an hour with only a second  hand helmet keeping him from braining himself if he ran into anything. Sometimes he hadn’t even bothered with that… until Ruri caught him. Shun can still remember those rosy eyes narrowing in abject fury as she’d scolded him over and over again for twenty minutes. No, Shun never had to worry about his sister taking off with some weirdo boyfriend on a motorbike. She was much too sensible for that.

Even so, he’d been curious, once, and had casually asked Yuuto to maybe give him a lesson sometime, whenever, he didn’t really give a crap, he was free that second actually if Yuuto was planning to ever emerge from that book and rejoin the living. Yuuto had laughed himself senseless and was still chuckling even as he showed Shun the gearshift and the clutch and the accelerator and the brakes, limbs askew as he stood over the bike.

_Your turn,_

and Shun had been scared shitless, as only Yuuto (and Ruri) could ever make him feel, actually stuttering out a _y-you sure?_ , and Yuuto had sighed and said _just sit on the bike, you baby, test the weight and-_

 And that was where the memory stopped.  He thinks he remembers Ruri coming in at some point, and if so the telling-off he suffered would have been so traumatic he’s probably blanked it out, and all that’s left is Yuuto saying _test the weight_ so he supposes now, facing his only practice opportunity before his first riding duel,  that that’s what he should start with.

 (Even as a ghost of a memory in the corner of Shun’s mind, Yuuto still managed to be as highly irritating and know-it-all as ever.)

 

So he shakes off the memory, sits astride the bike, leans to the side and-

 And the whole thing tips over so fast he barely has time to jump off before it slams into the concrete of the empty underground track.

Sitting on his ass, he swears, and almost strangles himself trying to get up when he realises his scarf is still trapped under the bike.

 S _tupid piece of-_

 

x

 

 The next time, it goes a little better. He’s ready for the weight now, and congratulates himself on managing to sit on the bike successfully, before looking down at the ignition button and swearing some more. He thinks he remembers something about a clutch being on the left (or was it the right?) and Yuuto flicking up one booted foot saying _up for one, down for two and three_ , but there doesn’t appear to be any gearshift on this stupid thing, only a button that says automode. He pushes ignition, the bike roars to life, and

He hits automode, pulls on the throttle

and the bike takes off so fast he barely has time to tuck his legs on the pedals.

  _Oh._

He’s happy at first, but then gets kind of bored of tugging on the handlebars and doing senseless laps around the ring, and anyway he feels like automode is the kind of thing Yuuto’d call blasphemy. So after grinding to a hold and wrestling with his inner panic for a while, he turns it off. A gearshift slides out, and suddenly the left bar shoots out a lever, which he holds onto for dear life as he realises this is the clutch, Yuuto in his head saying _never drop the clutch, Shun,_ and he squeezes the ever-loving crap out of it as he flicks his foot up into first, tugs on the accelerator and-

and drops the clutch. The bike squeals and dies, and-

 

Yuuto in his head, raucous laughter ringing in his ears, and he’s chucking the bike unceremoniously to the ground, and

 Yuuto saying _come on man, you’re not a quitter, and don’t you dare throw a bike to the ground ever again_ and

 Yuuto grabbing his arm, guiding him back to the bike, coaxing him as they go

_just ease it off, Shun, ease it off and accelerate as you go_

and as he angrily punches the ignition, yanking up the foot pedal into first and revving the accelerator, he can almost feel slim fingers in his hair, _chill out man, you can do it if I can do it, you’re the smart one remember_ , and he rumbles off, wobbing a little but steadily gaining speed, he can almost see Yuuto waving him off from by the track, cheeky little shit-eating grin as usual, and he flips him off, sticking up his middle finger to his imaginary best friend who blows him an imaginary kiss

 he’s suddenly sick of being in this hole, he wants to roar off into the night, he wants to move so fast that the world is left behind him, so he

 makes for the ramp and follows it, round and round until it reaches the doors that he thankfully left open in his usual i-don’t-give-a-shit-way

 And the world is around him, the glitz of the Tops world above him and beyond that the stars, a hundred billion pricking lights in the darkness, and he stomps on the gear pedal, down and down again, roaring through the streets, and the exhilaration is such that he understands now, he understands Yuuto a little more, he almost forgives him for almost getting himself killed and then _actually_ getting himself killed and he almost feels phantom hands around his waist and he can almost see it, them driving off into the darkness, off to travel the world, somewhere in a parallel universe

 

and in all the rush

 

he feels

 

almost happy


End file.
